In actual network transmission, an operator usually implements service transmission for a user by configuring a tunnel, such as a virtual local area network (Virtual Local Area Network, VLAN for short) tunnel, and a pseudo wire (Pseudo Wire, PW for short) tunnel. However, to configure these tunnels, a network and a network device must meet certain functional requirements. For example, when a PW tunnel is configured, both a provider edge (Provider Edge, PE for short) device and a provider (Provider, P for short) device on a network need to support label forwarding. Whereas a generic routing encapsulation (Generic Routing Encapsulation, GRE for short) tunnel is a simple data tunnel, in which configurations of the tunnel can be ensured only when the PE device of the tunnel is ensured. Therefore, the GRE technology receives extensive attention from equipment providers and operators.
On a wireless local access network (Wireless Local Access Network, WLAN for short), the GRE tunnel is especially useful. Generally, a WLAN network architecture includes an access point (Access Point, AP for short), an access controller (Access Controller, AC for short), and a gateway (Gateway, GW for short). The AP is a network element that is deployed on a side of a terminal and is accessed by the terminal. For example, a wireless fidelity (Wireless Fidelity, WiFi for short) hot spot is an AP. The AC is configured to control an access network element, for example, configuration of AP information. The AC may be deployed in a data transmission path and is responsible for routing and forwarding, and may also be connected only to the GW and be responsible for access control. The GW, also referred to as a WLAN GW, is a WLAN gateway device and is responsible for managing a WLAN user. The WLAN GW includes functions of a broadband remote access server (Broadband Remote Access Server, BRAS for short)/a broadband network gateway (Broadband Network Gateway, BNG for short) on an operator's network. It is a tendency in the future that a single WLAN GW is deployed to complete various management on the WLAN user, including billing, policy, quality of service (Quality of Service, QoS for short), and the like.
In addition to the foregoing scenarios, the operator, especially the fixed network operator, faces a bandwidth bottleneck during development. The uplink bandwidth of a broadband home gateway in a last mile is difficult to improve due to constraints of physical cables; costs for re-laying out the cables are high. The operator hopes to bind other links or links of other networks and use a network path on which multiple accesses coexist to improve broadband services over a fixed network. Therefore, the operator hopes to introduce an aggregation technology of homogeneous or heterogeneous access networks to an access network to improve network bandwidth.
A home gateway (Home Gateway, HG for short), as a network access device, can increase access bandwidth for a user by binding a plurality of links. In the case of aggregation of multiple access networks, it should be ensured that a technology that implements efficient tunnel transmission between the access device HG and an aggregation gateway (Aggregation Gateway, AG for short) is provided. During actual deployment of a network, the operator hopes to set up a tunnel based on the homogeneous or heterogeneous access network over a Layer 3 network, and to increase bandwidth utilization. To meet this requirement and to reduce requirements for a transmission network, many access device providers and operators are all in favor of a GRE transmission technology.
However, in an existing GRE tunnel, it is necessary to configure addresses of a source node and a destination node as the destination addresses of the tunnel on the source node and the destination node of the GRE tunnel, that is, to implement static configuration of the GRE tunnel. However, this is not applicable to a situation in which a variety of access networks are aggregated and a plurality of IP addresses exist in the access device or the AG. If the IP addresses are still statically configured, obviously, an advantage of an aggregation technology that dynamically selects the access network to make use of network resources cannot be brought into full play.